Inclusion in an Electronic Classroom

Disability Group: BLIND

ID 2001

Problems encountered by this participant including a comparison between this participant and the participant with ID 2013 will be addressed below.

COURSE INF.

Item 12 (Post a message to the chat room).

1. Once in the Chat room, there were only two accessible boxes that the participant could potentially go to. The participant did not know where to enter the message since she was unable to decipher, which of the two boxes should be used: the first box was called ‘Location’ and the other was not labeled.
2. Instructions were given and the layout of the screen described to the participant. The participant was then able to post a message without further difficulties.

• Difficulties with the layout of the Chat room and the absence of clear labels or instructions with regards to the functions of the various edit boxes.

Item 13 (Try the White-Board).

1. The white-board was inaccessible with the keyboard. The participant tried many different strategies to access including different manipulations of the JAWS cursors but was unsuccessful.

• White-board cannot be accessed if the user is dependent exclusively on the use of the keyboard.

Comparison with 2013

1. Participant 2013 also experienced difficulties reading the messages in the Chat Room (Item 11) but unlike 2013, 2001 was able to manipulate the different JAWS cursors to successfully read the message she had posted. 2013 failure to successfully complete the task was due to her lack of experience with JAWS and lack of knowledge about the possible uses of its different cursors. This was further complicated by the fact that she was unmotivated and easily frustrated when challenged.
2. Participant 2013 also experienced difficulty posting a message to the Electric Blackboard (Item 14). 2001 was able to post a message after given a few hints about where she should enter the information. Accordingly, this item also presented difficulties for 2001 since it was also unclear to her where the information should be posted but her expertise and excellent handle of JAWS allowed her to explore and get pass any potential barriers. 2013 was not able to get pass these barriers because of her unwillingness to persevere and her difficulties with JAWS.
3. Participant 2013 encountered difficulties with Item 15, which required that the participant submit a file to the Assignment Drop-Box. The difficulty with this item is due to the defective Browse button. 2013 was unable to overcome this problem but 2001 was able to explore and switch between cursors, which eventually allowed her to select the browse button. 2001 was also able to decipher without any assistance or hints that JAWS was skipping over a button (because she could hear a "silent" button). When the browse button was selected an error submission occurred. Again, this was a problem with the software.
4. Participant 2013 had incommensurable difficulties completing Item 23, which required that she complete the online quiz. Reasons for her difficulties included problems with JAWS not reading the page (automatically nor with her own intervention), subject’s difficulty entering data and her obvious and intrusive frustration level. 2001 also experienced some difficulty but was able to overcome these with her expert navigation skills and mastery of JAWS. Potential barriers include: JAWS does not read the entire page; When tabbing through the Quiz, the tab moves from edit box to edit box hence the user is not able to associate particular edit boxes with particular questions unless she switched between cursors using one cursor to read the question and another to provide and enter an answer. 2001 was able to maneuver this manipulation but 2013 was not because of her difficulty with JAWS (also, it involved too much effort and because she lacked the drive to experiment, she was quick to give up).

WEB-CT

Item 10 (Start the White-Board and try out its features).

1. Like participant 2013, this participant also had some difficulties with this item.
2. From the keyboard, the participant was only able to get to two out of three options on the white-board page: namely, Home and Back. The third option "Start White-Board" was inaccessible with the keyboard. The participant became confused by the limited number of possible choices on the screen and wondered if they had done something wrong or had missed something on a previous screen. The participant was told that there was a third button on the screen that evidently could not be accessed with the tab.
3. She began to explore with the JAWS cursor and was able to locate and select the icon. However once she was within the White-board, all features were inaccessible (with the keyboard). This is a confirmed problem with the software.

Summary:

• The option necessary to "start the whiteboard" was inaccessible with the keyboard (But with manipulation of the Jaws mouse cursor, it is accessible).
• All features within the white-board are also inaccessible.

Item 12 (Posting a message to the Chat room).

1. Like 2013, this participant also experienced difficulty with this item. The subject was not able to select the rooms or general chat options because these were inaccessible with the keyboard. There were actually three sets of buttons on the screen; the first two were Home and Back. The third set included those needed to access the different chat rooms, that needed to access the general chat room and that to access the course chat room.
2. The participant was not clear as to the location of the edit box for entering the message to be posted since again the edit box was not labeled (e.g. Should say ‘Enter your message here or something like that). The participant was able to tab to a number of different locations within the chat screen but was still confused. She tried to read with the JAWS cursor by moving down the screen but this was not helpful either because JAWS read the edit box as "Quit" and not "edit box" or "message box". This is because in this cursor JAWS reads the entire row from one side to the next in an inclusive manner. Because the edit box was not labeled, JAWS only read the "Quit" icon, which was in the same row. Instructions were needed to help the participant locate the edit box, which was required to post the message.
3. After the participant had finished entering her message to be posted, she was uncertain about how to post it. She scanned the screen with the JAWS cursor looking for a send button but there was none. Finally with some prompting and direct instructions, she was able to read the text that said, "press enter after you have finished typing your message". The participant was unaware of this message and had to be instructed to look for it with the JAWS cursor.

Summary:

• This item would be very problematic for someone who is visually impaired, particularly so if they are not able to explore and navigate very well with JAWS.
• The icons for starting the Chat were inaccessible (Rooms and General and Course Chat).
• The layout of the chat room, once the user had gotten in there was very confusing for the user. The edit box for entering the message to be posted was also not labeled.
• Instruction for posting the message was not read and participant was not sure how to post the message to be posted. The instructions should be linked in some way to the edit box so that if the User tabs through the links on the screen (as is necessary when JAWS fails to automatically read the entire page) she would not miss the instructions.

Item 11 (Reading a Message).

1. This item was also problematic for 2013. Participant 2001 was unaware of where she would be able find the message she had posted. Instructions specifying the location of the "conversation box" were deemed necessary for her to complete the task, which she was eventually able to do, unlike 2013.

Summary:

• The Chat room in general presented a lot of difficulties even for the expert JAWS user. The expert user was able to overcome many of the difficulties given time to explore but it was a challenge even for her.

Comparison with 2013.

1. 2013 also had difficulty with Item 3 (Read the Access Exercise) but this participant experienced absolutely no problems.
2. 2013 had difficulty with Item 5 (Viewing the Course Notes). The only difficulty that 2001 had with this item was keeping track of which of the Course Notes she had already read. The course notes did not say "visited link" so sometimes she read one course note twice but this was not a barrier of any kind.
3. 2013 also experienced difficulties with Item 14 (Submit a file using the Assignment Drop-Box). There were also some initial barriers for 2001 but she was able to overcome these with hints given by the researcher. When she had entered into the Assignment drop box, the 2001 was a bit confused with the layout of the screen (only option was "access exercise" which didn’t make any sense as the next logical step). The participant asked the researcher whether she should go here and the researcher agreed that she should give it a try. Again difficulties were also experienced with the "silent browse" button but the participant was once again able to manipulate the cursors and select browse.
4. 2013 experienced difficulties with Item 15 (Read messages posted to the Bulletin Board). There were again some initial confusion also for 2001 but not enough of a barrier to warrant either instructions or physical intervention. The problem was due to the fact that after choosing a message to be read, the message is not read automatically. Instead JAWS continued to read the list of people who have submitted messages. The open message was in another frame under the list of people who had submitted messages. Hence JAWS read through all of this before reading the opened message. This presented confusion to the participant who assumed that her message had not been opened. She was informed that the message was in the bottom frame at the bottom of the screen. Hence, the message opened does not read automatically but rather the subject had to navigate to the bottom of the screen to read it or wait until JAWS had read the entire list of messages first. Without the hint, the subject would have been disoriented. So there are indeed some difficulties here. 2001 was able to persevere and overcome these difficulties but 2013 was not.
5. Participant 2013 also experienced difficulties with Item 17 (Post a message to the Bulletin Board). 2001 had no difficulties. JAWS read "subject edit" for both the Subject line and the Body but the participant was able to figure this out by herself.
6. Participant 2013 also experienced difficulties with Item 24 (Contact the Instructor through the internal Email). 2001 had no difficulties.

WEB COURSE IN A BOX

• Participant 2001 experienced no major accessibility difficulties with this module.
• She was able to complete all of the items that 2013experienced difficulties with without the need for hints or clarifications. In cases where discrepancies were encountered (for instance going into "Student" looking for the "Student Directory" but these were one in the same only with different names on different pages) the participant was able to solve these without any help.
• She spent time scanning the page and forming visual maps and was very interested in the task. She was able to get pass the defective browse button (and was able to attach a file of her choice) and although JAWS presented difficulties (not reading page etc.), this participant was able to overcome these difficulties by manipulating the JAWS cursor and successfully switching from cursor to cursor to complete the task (one cursor for reading and scanning and another for data entry etc.).
• Hence she was able to overcome all difficulties encountered by 2013 (with the exception of the error submission by the Browse button) with her motivation, perseverance and expertise with JAWS.

TOP CLASS

• Again Participant 2001 experienced no major accessibility difficulties with this module that required either instructions or physical intervention. 2013 did not complete Top Class (see reason in her summary) but did experience difficulty with Item 7 (Attach a file to send along with your email).
• The problem with this item was the defective browse button which JAWS fails to read. As before, participant 2001 is able to select/read the browse button with the manipulation of the JAWS cursor and was subsequently able to attach successfully.

VIRTUAL U

Item 1 (Login to Virtual U).

1. The problem experienced on this item was a result of administrative changes and not the fault of the participant. Here the participant tried to enter the password provided to her by the researcher but an error message came on. After trying this a number of times, the researcher spoke with the administrator who informed her that he had changed the password.

Summary:

• Hence difficulties here were not associated with any characteristics of the participant.

Item 6 (Send Email to the Instructor).

1. Problems experienced here were a direct result of faulty connections with the software. After the participant selected the "send Email" icon, it tries to connect to the Netscape browser and results in an error message.

Summary:

• Everyone doing the task experienced this problem. It was a result of problems with the software and not due to particular characteristics inherent to the participants.

1. Problems experienced here were mainly because the Site map icons were not linked. Hence the visual user is able to visually identify different icons like the Library but the visually impaired are not aware of what the site map contains.
2. JAWS does not read the page and even if it did, it would be very confusing and not very helpful for the blind user. The participant was also not able to tab through the page (to learn of its content) because the icons were inactive links.

Summary:

• It would be a definite asset to have these links active on the site map because it would provide an easier alternative method of navigating within the courseware, not only for the visually impaired but also for users with intellectual challenges. This item also presented difficulties for 2013.

Item 28 (Access the On-line HELP page and from there change your password).

1. Participant went to help icon and tried to change her password. But after she had entered her old password and new password, an error message saying that the old password was incorrect popped up.
2. She tried a number of different passwords (recall that she also had trouble logging in also because of a mix up with the password) including her first name and surname initial and 123456785 but neither worked (although she was able to log-in successfully using the identical password, this was now being rejected). The researcher physically intervened and tried the "pre-arranged" passwords (with caps and without) but was also unsuccessful. As a result, they moved on to the next item.

Summary:

• This difficulty was one with the software and/or its interaction with JAWS and not due to any factors related to the participant’s ability, experience or state of mind.

Item 34 (Return to your Workspace and choose "Set Options").

1. Many of the icons from the Workspace were inactive from the keyboard (including Calendar, Library, Glossary, Set Options). These were accessible with the mouse however.
2. This participant, unlike 2013 was able to complete Item 31 (Access Calendar), Item 32 (Access Library) and Item 33 (Access Glossary) by experimenting and finding alternative ways to access these icons other than from workspace. This process was very time consuming and energy draining for her.
3. When we got to Item 34, which again required accessing something from Workspace, instead of asking her to experiment and access elsewhere, the researcher physically intervened and accessed "set options" with the mouse.

Summary:

• Accessing icons from the Workspace was impossible with the keyboard. Participant 2001 tried numerous strategies (different versions of the JAWS cursor to select the icon but was unsuccessful) to access the workspace icons but was unable to do so from workspace. But with perseverance and her excellent exploration skills, participant 2001 is able to overcome barriers presented by the inaccessible workspace icons by finding alternative routes to the same icons (so another way to access Library other than from the workspace etc.).

1. For this item, the participant was required to enter her password as a prerequisite/security measure before being allowed to change her email address. Because of the previous difficulties with the password, she was unable to complete this item.
2. She had no difficulties accessing the page and selecting the Personal Options needed to update her email address. The only barrier was the fact that her password was not being accepted.

Summary:

• Difficulties were encountered with this item as a result of problems occurring or resulting from the interactions between JAWS and the software. (The password that she was using was the same as the one previously used to sign into the module but was now being rejected as incorrect).

Comparison to 2013:

1. Like 2001, participant 2013 experienced difficulties with Items 13 and 34 (see software problems described above).
2. Participant 2013 also was unable to complete Item 15 (Accessing the café), Item 31 (Accessing the Calendar); Item 33 (Accessing the Glossary); Item 34 (Accessing the Set Options). Unlike 2001, she refused to try accessing these icons from other possible locations and hence the researcher physically intervened (in workspace) in order to allow her access to these icons. The participant’s (2013) low motivation and low level JAWS skills were the main culprits for her difficulties with these items. But her inability to access the icons from Workspace is due to problems with the software (links not accessible with the keyboard and some links in the top menu bar of workspace were also defective (see participant 2013 Virtual U summary for elaborations).
3. This participant (2013) also had difficulties with Item 7 (Remember this is all Virtual U) where the task required that she read through the Course Overview. Difficulties were a result of the factors again associated with the participant’s low motivation. Participant 2001 did not experience any difficulties with this item.

MALLARD

• Again Participant 2001 experienced no major accessibility difficulties with this module that required either instructions or physical intervention. 2013 experienced difficulty with items 4 (Quiz), Item 5 (View Grades) and Item 13 (Change the icon Bar to show double columns) but 2001 completed these without difficulties. Difficulties experienced by 2013 were a result of her inexperience navigating with JAWS in addition to other person variables (frustration, lack of motivation etc.). 2001 was able to overcome any of these potential difficulties with her mastery of JAWS.

Summary of Overall problems experienced by 2001

Difficulties experienced by this participant are a result of problems with the software and not characteristics directly associated with the participant.

• Layout of the Chat Room created some confusion along with the absence of clear labels or instruction with regards to the functions of the various edit boxes within the Chat room.
• Option to "start the whiteboard" is not accessible unless the participants explores with the mouse cursor
• All features within the Whiteboard cannot be accessed if the user is dependent exclusively on the use of the keyboard.
• Icons for starting and selecting the Chat (Rooms, General and Course Chat) was inaccessible
• Some problems experienced were a result of administrative changes (password)
• Problems with the connection of the email
• Problems with the Site-Map: Icons not linked.
• Some Workspace icons not accessible
• Interaction between JAWS and the software: Password previously accepted now being rejected.